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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Andy_T on Sunday 23 June 19 09:36 BST (UK)
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I read through many pages of Appleby Magna, Leicestershire Parish records in the 18th centenary and I estimate about 10% of births seen in 1700's were described as bastard son or daughter or base born son or daughter etc.
By contrast I recently read many transcripts of Warwickshire parish records from early 1500s to mid 1600s and did not see any births / baptisms describing illegitimacy.
I should add I did see some instances of baptisms coming before parents got married But no judgemental comments were recorded in the parish records seen.
Therefore my question: Was the church more tolerant towards illegitimacy in the 16th and 17th centuries than in the 18th century. Or were illegitimate births not allowed to be recorded at all?
Andy_T
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I don't think that the terms bastard or base-born were judgmental in 18th Century?
Just factual.
Whether the terms were used at all was at the whim of the vicar writing things down.
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I think that the Puritans after mid 1600s made those terms factual from about 1650 to end of 18th century. Imprisonment for Bastardy was not uncommon.
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https://www.anglican.net/doctrines/1604-common-law/#p1-12
see Chapter LXX re. maintaining register.
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Thanks for the link:
"LXX.Ministers to keep a Register of Christnings, Weddings and Burials" is a standard operating procedure setting out materials needed and responsibilities of clergy and churchwardens for each parish. Like SOP's in modern business, sometimes procedures are followed and sometimes neglected.
In Warwickshire parish records are available from early 1500's although some are faded or damaged many have survived and have transcriptions.
I found my maternal 14 times great grandparents and their 7 children. 2 children were born 1560 & 1562 and they married in 1563.
My 9 times great grandparents had 3 children before marrying in 1685.
There was no mention of illegitimacy in the parish records.
On the other hand in 1780 my paternal 3 times great grandfather was described in Appleby Magna parish records as the "base born (s) of 2 named unmarried parents.
Andy_T
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The attitude towards illegitimacy has always varied from clergyman to clergyman. No clergyman would decline to baptise an illegitimate child; after all it is not the child's fault. However the parents may have been treated differently.
Some attitudes may have been formed because "the parish" had the responsibility of maintaining the mother and child until the mother was able to work again.
One place I know (Blackrod in Lancashire) only had a chapel-of-ease, so baptisms and burials could be performed, but marriages were supposed to be at the mother church, 7 miles away in Bolton. It looks like some families used Standish, 3.5 miles away, for all their ceremonies. However nearly all illegitimate children from both camps appear to be baptised at Wigan, 4.5 miles away.
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The parish registers were a source of reference in cases of illegitimacy & inheritance of property & real estate, the laws in Scotland & England differed as regards legitimised children & for example some Scots peerages are descended from illegitimate children of the monarch. This was not the case in England apparently, although controversially, Elizabeth I herself was legally a bastard, which no doubt bolstered the claim of Mary Queen of Scots to that throne & kept her in prison!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_(family_law)
Skoosh.
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Here, in the Isle of Man, mothers of illegitimate births were reported, or "Presented" to the Chapter Court.
They were guilty of transgressing the Ecclesiastical Law of Fornication ;D
They had to present themselves to the Court, or the incumbent cleric, to be admonished and asked to reveal the name of the father. (That's so he could be ordered to pay the costs of upkeep of the child, rather than the parish)
Failure to do so resulted in a fine of (I think) 2s 11d.
These Presentments are very useful to Family Historians, as you can imagine ;D
In my experience, rural parishes had an awful lot more of these cases than the towns?
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I read through many pages of Appleby Magna, Leicestershire Parish records in the 18th centenary and I estimate about 10% of births seen in 1700's were described as bastard son or daughter or base born son or daughter etc.
By contrast I recently read many transcripts of Warwickshire parish records from early 1500s to mid 1600s and did not see any births / baptisms describing illegitimacy.
I should add I did see some instances of baptisms coming before parents got married But no judgemental comments were recorded in the parish records seen.
Therefore my question: Was the church more tolerant towards illegitimacy in the 16th and 17th centuries than in the 18th century. Or were illegitimate births not allowed to be recorded at all?
Could one explanation be that early baptism registers were short on detail?
Another is that fornication could be harshly punished in 16th and 17th centuries. This was a deterrent to illegitimacy.
This topic has been discussed before on RootsChat. Search for the words illegitimate, illegitimacy.
This thesis is specifically about East Yorkshire in 18th & 19th centuries but contains information about earlier times and England in general.
"The Incidence and Nature of Illegitimacy in East Yorkshire in 18th and 19th Centuries" by Margaret Sheila Oliver
https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/assets/hull:12306a/content
Appendices include:
Terms denoting illegitimacy in East Yorkshire parish registers.
List of tables includes:
Recorded illegitimate baptisms before and after 1753 Marriage Acts for selected East Yorkshire parishes.
List of figures includes:
Illegitimacy ratio for England 1538-1754
Rise of illegitimacy 1700-1839
Illegitimacy ratio for East Yorkshire 1538-1750
Comparison of illegitimate ratio England and East Yorkshire 1538-1750
Other studies are doubtless available.
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The attitude towards illegitimacy has always varied from clergyman to clergyman. No clergyman would decline to baptise an illegitimate child; after all it is not the child's fault. However the parents may have been treated differently.
Some attitudes may have been formed because "the parish" had the responsibility of maintaining the mother and child until the mother was able to work again.
One place I know (Blackrod in Lancashire) only had a chapel-of-ease, so baptisms and burials could be performed, but marriages were supposed to be at the mother church, 7 miles away in Bolton. It looks like some families used Standish, 3.5 miles away, for all their ceremonies. However nearly all illegitimate children from both camps appear to be baptised at Wigan, 4.5 miles away.
Baptism registers of my home village had a capital B to denote baptisms of illegitimate babies. I noted recurrence of certain surnames in a small area of the parish and several births concentrated in other small areas, over a short time period in 18thC. The parish workhouse was in the first area.
Registers at some other churches didn't have the B word; instead the mother was noted as "Singlewoman".
That's interesting about illegitimate children baptised at Wigan. My earliest identified female ancestor (b. 1760s) in one line in that area had the same names as a woman who seemed to have produced several children out of wedlock. The children were numbered.
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Thanks Maiden Stone for the link to the University of Hull thesis by Margaret Oliver. I look forward to reading >300 pages and this will take some time.
I always assumed that illegitimacy was frowned upon and probably condemned in 16th & 17th centuries. Also that around the time of Oliver Cromwell Puritans not only condemned illegitimacy but criminalized it as well. Therefore at this time puritan influence made attitudes judgemental about illegitimacy and this carried on into 18th century and beyond in protestant churches and communities.
In 1500s to mid 1600s Warwickshire parish records the information seen gives, name of child and it's father, date of baptism and parish; Kingsbury, Warwickshire for example. Occasionally the wife / mother's name is given.
I also saw many hundreds of baptism records for other family names as well as my mother's family name and illegitimacy is not mentioned. Although I saw some records of births / baptisms before the child's parents married (cross checking baptism dates and later a marriage date, they were surely born out of wedlock).
This is the reason I was asking if the church in the 16th century was more relaxed about illegitimacy than it was after puritanism in later 17th century going into the 18th century?
Andy_T
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Therefore my question: Was the church more tolerant towards illegitimacy in the 16th and 17th centuries than in the 18th century. Or were illegitimate births not allowed to be recorded at all?
My limited experience of transcribing suggests that it was a matter of hit-and-miss. While covering several decades in one parish I found sudden bursts of recording 'base-born' or whatever, then all went quiet again. Maybe the minister changed, or chose not to bother, or the bishop issued an edict which was forgotten or ignored after a while. I didn't feel able to conclude anything useful about church morals of the time.
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I think Andrew Tarr is correct and recording illegitimacy seems to be hit and miss.
My research of Beycke / Becke / Beck family in Warwickshire surprised me when I found baptisms before parents married. My assumption before this research was that attitudes of the church would be more strict in 16th & 17th centuries than the 18th century where bastardy was highlighted in about 10% of all parish records. My research has caused me to question my assumptions because it seems that in the 1500's it wasn't important enough to record illegitimacy in these Warwickshire baptism records.
The 16th century was within living memory of the reformation (1537) and the 17th century saw the rise of Puritanism and Puritans wanted the church to be more strongly protestant.
Again this was regional with towns like Cambridge being strongly Puritan. In 1649 King Charles 1st was beheaded. He had a French wife who was a Catholic and he had on occasions attended a private Catholic church service with her.
The Puritan Commonwealth made illegitimacy a criminal as well as a moral offense and flagged bastard children in their parish records.
Cromwell died in 1658 and the monarchy was restored in 1660 but the legacy of the Puritans was a less Catholic and more protestant Anglican church.
Andy_T
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I always assumed that illegitimacy was frowned upon and probably condemned in 16th & 17th centuries. Also that around the time of Oliver Cromwell Puritans not only condemned illegitimacy but criminalized it as well. Therefore at this time puritan influence made attitudes judgemental about illegitimacy and this carried on into 18th century and beyond in protestant churches and communities.
That is my understanding, based on what I've read. Illegitimacy was evidence of fornication. A punishment for fornication in England was public whipping "at the cart's tail" i.e. being dragged through the town/village tethered to the back of a cart.
I came across a list of people summonsed to attend Preston parish church in Lancashire in 1720s to answer charges of fornication.
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In Scotland those guilty of landing illegitimate kids on the parish were interviewed by the Kirk elders & if guilty had to appear before the congregation on several Sundays to be rebuked, it wasn't a matter of how Protestant the Kirk was, it was a matter of hard cash as the Kirk was the only social security system & had enough to do supporting the school & the poor without paying for the child's upbringing. Money was always short & whenever possible pressure would be applied to a couple to marry. The poet Burns had first-hand experience of this! ;D
Skoosh.
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Poor Laws in England began in reign of Queen Elizabeth. As Skoosh said, cost had a big part to play in discouraging illegitimacy. Keeping people on the straight & narrow and making them face up to their responsibilities was financially prudent.
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Offenders had to sit upon the "Black Stool", here the poet mocks his own ordeal as a youth on a visit to Dunfermline Abbey!
https://dunfermlinehistsoc.org.uk/burns-and-the-abbeys-black-stool/
Skoosh.
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I did find one area where there seemed to be a load of children born prior to marriage, and also a load of marriages of those very parents - I speculated either that there was no clergyman to hand to marry people, so they got done in a sort of "job lot" when the right chap came round, or that the local church / chapel - I can't recall which - suddenly got itself a "Hellfire" preacher, who frightened all the cohabiting couples into marriage at last.
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Reading some extracts by Professor Alan Macfarlane from “Illegitimacy and illegitimates in English history” has given me some insights:
Even before Elizabethan times where my Beycke / Becke / Beck family research started, bastardy was categorized into two groups:
• “General Bastardy” where parents did not marry after the birth of their children
• “Special Bastardy” espoused or not at time of birth, they (the parents) later married
When 'general bastardy was disputed, it could be tried in the ecclesiastical courts as
such, but 'special bastardy could only be tried in the common law courts, for it was not recognized as 'bastardy by the church (Burn, I, p. 112).(9)
By the law of the church all those born of parents who married, no matter when the
marriage took place, were legitimate (Burn, 1, p. 112). According to the thirteenth-century Bishop Robert Grosseteste, there had been an earlier custom that any children born before marriage were placed beneath the care-cloth at the wedding service and were held to be legitimate.
The children I found baptism records before the parents married likely fell into the “Special Bastardy” category and would have been considered legitimate after their parents married.
Andy_T
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Fascinating information. Thank you for that, Andy_T.
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The point has been touched upon several times above, but smaller/more remote parishes may not have had a regular incumbent. There are numerous instances of one minister holding more than one parish. And on the death of an incumbent, a new one might not be appointed straight away.
That could explain some of the "job lot" marriages.
Having said that, attitudes to illegitimacy did vary through the centuries.
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pinefamily: " Attitudes to illegitimacy did vary through the centuries ".
There was church law since the beginning of the church, common law from 13th century and there were attitudes that varied from region to region, parish to parish as well as over the centuries.
The ecclesiastical and common law applied to bastardy I quoted recently from extracts by Professor Alan Macfarlane from “Illegitimacy and illegitimates in English history”, were from the 13th century and therefore before King Henry viii's reformation of the church in 1537.
The stripping of power from the abbeys meant that revenue and land transferred from abbots (representing abbeys) to nobles and a bible in English language was transcribed by Thomas Cramner in 1539 and sent out to all churches.
Apart from these changes ecclesiastical law did not change and many priests still died lifelong bachelors. Ecclesiastical law relating to bastardy stayed the same, albeit in late 16th century and throughout the 17th century, the rise of Puritanism lead to unmarried parents being more harshly pursued and punished where Puritan churches had power and influence.
Andy_T
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A few years ago I was involved in a project Dorset bastards. It was fixated on the 18th century and used Parish BMD records. Where comparison was possible in the same period the following was apparent; there was a higher rate of illegitimacy in the Towns than in country parishes. In both their was an increase during the century, with the rate increasing substatially during the time the country was at ward (Usually with France)
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Reading some extracts by Professor Alan Macfarlane from “Illegitimacy and illegitimates in English history” has given me some insights:
"Illegitimacy and illegitimates in English history" by Alan MacFarlane from "Bastardy and its Comparative History", Peter Laslett, Karla Oosterveen and Richard M. Smith (eds.) publisher Arnold 1980. www.alanmacfarlane.com/TEXTS/bastardy.pdf